Quinary
by bethsaida
Summary: Series of one-shots exploring Uncas and Alice's development through each of the five senses.
1. Sound

It was impossible to sleep in a place like this. Cannons and musket fire had greeted them when they arrived at William Henry, and forty-eight hours later they hadn't let up. The summer air was saturated with sawdust and gunpowder. At the heart of the fort, muffled groans seeped out of the infirmary. Every footfall above the ceiling reminded Uncas what a relief it would be when they finally left.

Their British hosts were cold but courteous. A week ago Uncas would have chalked up their aloofness to snobbery, but he knew better now. These were exhausted men. Trapped inside, forced to listen to the thunder of cannonballs growing closer while outside the French dug thirty meters of trench a day. They were waiting for reinforcements, or waiting to die.

Careful not to disturb his father, Uncas slipped out of the bunker they shared with the Mohawk scouts. Nathaniel was absent, probably blowing off steam with Ian and Jack. Since their arrival his brother had spent more time with the colonials than with his family. It bothered Chingachgook, though he tried not to show it. Uncas thought he should mention this to Nathaniel, but he really did not feel like dealing with his brother's infamous temper tonight. Nor did he feel like drawing attention himself. His presence tended to attract a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, even when not surrounded by his mixed-blood family. More than anything else he wanted a quiet place where he could close his eyes and be _alone_.

He brushed past the din from the mess hall, where the men not on sentry duty were drowning their fears in whiskey and ale. Turning to the stairwell, he followed the corridors downward without any real destination in mind. It wasn't long before he found himself utterly lost, which was more or less what he wanted. The air beneath the fort smelled cool and stale. He passed an unused musket rack and turned another corner. Then he paused to listen. Judging by the near-absolute silence above him, he had finally found a part of the fort that no one used. The only room in sight was a dusty storage closet. Curious and a little bored, Uncas peered across the threshold. Amid dusty crates and stacks of paper he discovered a battered piano forte sitting inside, abandoned.

His first thought on glancing at the piano was that it was very ugly. Most of its keys had yellowed, and its wooden frame was covered in nicks and splinters. A square mirror with a deep crack rested on the music stand. Someone probably had shoved it into the closet months ago to get it out of the way. An impractical, useless instrument during a siege. Uncas pitied it.

He tapped the keys experimentally with his fingers. When he and his brother were younger, their father had sent them to one of the Moravian missionary schools where a songmaster had tried (futilely, in Nathaniel's case) to instill in them a basic understanding of music. Nathaniel had lacked the patience to sit still; Uncas was perennially baffled by the strange dots and lines that supposedly represented songs. But he had learned the pitch of the black and ivory keys. His hands could mimic a song without needing to see the notes written on paper.

The piano in the fort was slightly out of tune. He played in spite of it–a light, tripping melody that reminded him of smooth pebbles and running streams.

A flash in the mirror caught his eye. The cracked glass distorted the reflection, but he could make out a pale figure in the doorway. Straw-colored hair over faded rosebuds, on a ghost of a dress that fitted her poorly. It was the younger sister, the timid one._ Alice_, they called her. Her panic attack had almost gotten every one of them killed on their way to the fort. It was only by clapping a hand over her mouth that he had finally gotten her quiet. He remembered feeling exasperated as he held her, bracing for the flutter of indignation that would surely follow as soon as he released her. But once the danger had passed, she had looked so ashamed. A silent cloud of remorse and self-loathing had darkened her eyelids. Uncas had found he couldn't bring himself to criticize her then, knowing anything he said would have been redundant. How she had found her way here, tonight, was a mystery he didn't have the energy to ponder. Evidently he was not the only one in the fort plagued with insomnia.

She was watching him from the threshold with her wide green eyes, the color of rain-drenched mountains in springtime. He wondered if she was shocked to discover the music that had enticed her below played by someone she almost certainly considered savage. With his back to the door, she did not know he could see her through the glass. He knew if he turned she would scamper like a frightened animal. And though it cost him a bit of self-righteousness to admit, he realized he did not want her to leave.

Uncas continued to the play the song unbroken as though he had noticed nothing. Then, after a few more bars, he let his fingers slow into a softer ballad. Glancing surreptitiously in the mirror, he saw her eyes relax and close. She leaned her head against the doorframe. Her lips turned upward, almost involuntarily.

He realized too late that it might have been unwise to play a song so like a lullaby. She couldn't fall asleep in front of the door—_he_ certainly couldn't carry her back to wherever it was she slept if she did. But this girl…he sensed this one shared his desire to remain hidden. She would creep away quietly before risking discovery. He was certain of it. It did not seem like such a difficult thing just then, to continue playing until she did.


	2. Sight

Alice has always regretted that she does not possess her sister's fortitude. Cora could spend sleepless nights in the infirmary, plugging her fingers into torn arteries and wrapping bandages around amputated stumps. Sometimes she would return in the dark hours of the morning with her sleeves rolled to her elbows and her forearms covered in blood. Always the same heavy circles under her eyes when it was through, but she went where she was needed without flinching. Hard, indomitable Cora. The mere scent of blood is enough to make Alice dizzy.

She shudders now, in the shadow of wizened trees and jaded mountains. There is no one blocking her view tonight. And no one is looking at her; they have far more important things to attend to. Her legs are sore and her eyelids are heavy. She wants very badly to sink into a warm, black abyss. But everyone else in the grove is working under a tight-lipped terror and Alice knows if she does nothing else she _must_ stay awake and she must _not_ look away.

It is gruesome when Cora cuts away his shirt, exposing shredded skin and bloody strings of muscle across his stomach. Alice has to fight off a wave of nausea. (Did she ever really think that chest handsome?) His torso resembles a piece of raw meat mauled by a wild animal. It is because of her that he is like that, though she cannot think of what she ought to have done differently. She did not ask him to pursue her to the cliffs alone...

Her throat feels as though she has swallowed something sharp and awful. He barely _knew_ her; what made it his prerogative to come to her rescue?

An hour ago Cora had ordered Nathaniel Poe to start a fire so she could sterilize her needles. The audacity of ordering that harsh man to do anything! Only Cora would be so bold. While her sister sews the gashes shut, Alice watches his upper body contract and his fingers clench. Uncas should not be conscious, she thinks, but some part of his mind must be able to register the pain they have no way to dull. Her sister wipes away the rivulets of fresh blood when they are finished, but Alice has visions of black and yellow bile oozing beneath his skin.

Then Cora puts her needles away and there is nothing to do but wait. As night crawls its way into the pale silence before dawn, Alice watches his stomach continue to rise and fall. A sprinkle of cool dewdrops begins to condense behind her neck, but she is determined to stay awake.


	3. Taste

_A/N: I was very torn about the idea of Uncas as a lover the first time I watched the film. His behavior towards Alice under the falls struck me not as a gesture of romance, but a gesture of compassion. Perhaps this interpretation speaks more highly of him. I would like to believe Uncas would feel compassion for someone like Alice whether he was in love with her or not. But if he did develop deeper feelings for her, I think it would take him a long time to acknowledge them and an even longer time to act on them._

_Also…not mine, since I keep forgetting to put that in._

* * *

Ian and his wife were Scots-Irish settlers, poor even by frontier standards. It showed in the tarnished cookware above the stove and the frayed hem of Johanna MacLaughlin's skirt. For that reason it felt wrong to trespass on their hospitality, even though they had brought a doe Chingachgook shot that afternoon and was now slumped glassy-eyed beside the fireplace. But after a week convalescing in the woods, the sight of the familiar oak-shuttered windows thrown open to catch a late summer breeze released a tension Uncas hadn't realized he had been carrying.

They sat down to a perfunctory supper of leftover venison stew, rye bread and a hasty pudding Johanna ladled out in pewter mugs and wooden bowls. Her lined half-smile had a trace of apology as she glanced at the girls. Uncas felt an almost instinctual anger on her behalf; Johanna should not feel ashamed in her own house simply because her guests were used to richer fare. Though in truth, the Munro sisters were doing nothing to give off that impression. Cora and Alice looked relieved just to eat at a table again, albeit a crude one sawed from cedar with benches instead of chairs. Alice sat with her feet obediently together and her back perpendicular to the floor. In her posture he detected years of etiquette lessons reasserting themselves. It was amusing how diligently she avoided looking at Nathaniel, who slouched unfashionably across the bench with one leg straddled on each side.

Ian slapped three mugs on the table and regarded the girls through stern brows. "Tell me all the news from Edinburgh," he said. Uncas had to hand it to him; Ian knew how to draw someone into conversation. It had been almost four years since either girl had lived in Scotland. But after Cora admitted as much, they talked casually of their cousins in the capital and of harvest festivals outside on the highlands. Even Alice managed a few remarks. It was impossible to miss the enthusiasm in her voice when she spoke of Scotland. It disconcerted him, and he tried to brush it aside. Why should it bother him if she missed her home?

He took a swallow of ale and tore off a chunk of dry bread. The staleness didn't bother him as long as he could scrape it against the bowl, letting it sop up the grease and juices from the venison stew. That was also something neither of the girls had tried. They preferred to pick the bread apart and place each piece delicately in their mouths. An impractical approach, as it inevitably created more crumbs. But it was what they were used to, and he suspected after the events of the last two weeks they derived comfort from the familiar.

Uncas hazarded another glance across the table. Cora so far was taking everything in stride. This was not the first battlefield she had walked through, though it was undoubtedly the worst. As for Alice…Alice was holding herself together, which was in its own way admirable. She had it harder than Cora. Cora's place in their family was all but decided, thanks to Nathaniel. Alice's place was to trail behind, a pale shadow looked back on with affection, but still no more than Cora's sister. It had occurred to him that he could change that. There were nights the possibility kept him awake for longer than he cared to admit. But his cooler self always prevailed before he did something reckless. He was not sure even now what this faltering debutante was to him. It seemed equally unlikely she would know, and it would not be fair to ask her now, after her life had been smashed to pieces and she devoted all her energy to painstakingly gluing it back together. Or perhaps he lacked his brother's conviction to reach out for something he wanted and damn the consequences.

He had lost track of the conversation when Alice burst into a fit of coughing. Cora's arm was instantly across her shoulders, but it was over in a few seconds. The culprit turned out to be the mug of ale in front of her. Ian reached across the table to pull it out of danger. When Alice looked up, her eyes had started to water. "Took a wrong swallow, did you?" Ian said, not unkindly. Alice straightened, one hand still grasping the table while the other massaged her throat.

"It's very strong," she said finally. By strong she probably meant _sour_, though she was too well-bred to say so. As if to prove her point, she took another sip once she regained her posture. This time the drink made it down her throat, though her eyes remained watery.

Perplexed, Uncas took another swallow. The ale tasted perfectly normal to him, but he was used to it. Most colonial families drank ale, or cider or fresh milk, with their meals. Alice had probably grown up in the tea gardens of socialites. Tea was a luxury the MacLaughlins couldn't afford, and what little sugar they had was too precious to pour away into their drinks. Alice appeared to be aware of this, or she was too polite to ask for something that was not on the table. He wondered a little jealously if she was remembering the sweet biscuits and fruit tarts she and her sister used to enjoy as the rest of them prattled through supper.

Still, he was surprised and mildly impressed that she downed the entire mug before the meal ended. He had a feeling this was more to prove her sincerity than because she actually liked it. But the episode seemed to have chased away her voice. It was a pity, Uncas thought. Her voice had a soothing lilt when she relaxed that he wouldn't have minded hearing again.

At the end of the meal Johanna stood up to collect their trenchers and bowls. Alice and Cora immediately rose as well, ignoring Johanna's efforts to wave off their help. Uncas remained seated. He ate slower than Nathaniel and his father, and it would have been rude not to finish what was in front of him. As he scraped up the last of the cornmeal pudding with a hunk of stale bread, he observed the three women at the window. Johanna and Alice were scrubbing their dishes in a bucket of soapy water by the stove. Cora tied her hair back before picking up a drying rag. After several minutes Johanna tapped Cora on the shoulder and asked her to help collect extra blankets from the barn. Uncas downed the last of his ale and carried his dishes to the stove.

"You don't have to do that," he told her. Alice glanced up from the wooden trencher she was washing. The hot water had turned the skin of her hands and forearms a scalding pink.

"They're kind people. And it was kind of you to bring us here," she said. "It must be difficult. I mean—this place must bring back difficult memories for you." She appeared embarrassed at having said so much. She immediately returned her focus to the trencher in the wash bucket, scrubbing it more attentively than before. It took him a beat to realize she was referring to the Camerons. As she did not look back up at him, he had the distinct impression she was worried her remark had crossed into forbidden territory.

"It's a relief to know this place is still standing," he answered truthfully. Noticing that her brow remained troubled, he added, "Spending time in this house makes me glad, Miss Munro." She still did not look up, but for a moment she appeared glad too. Uncertain what else to do, he picked up the maroon rag Cora had abandoned and started to dry off one of the trenchers set to air dry on the shelf. If she was surprised at his unasked-for help, she did not say so. They worked in companionable silence.

Uncas craned his neck toward the window. Outside it was a clear, moonless night. He flirted with the idea of showing her how to climb the roof. The walls of Ian's house had come from a copse of cedar trees that used to stand where the cabin was now. As a result, the cleared area opened up to a near-perfect circle of night sky above them. He studied the soft droop of her eyelashes and the curve of her jaw, less tense tonight than he could remember seeing them. There was a chance she would agree, this evening.

_Another night_, he thought, fully aware that in the morning they would strike out from the MacLaughlin cabin with no plans of returning for the foreseeable future. _Another night, but not tonight._


	4. Touch

She was searching for a clothes peg when it struck. Alice would later think that if she had _seen_ it first, or even heard it rustling in the fabric, she might have been able to keep silent. But no, she felt it first, when she slid her hand underneath the blankets in the tool shed. As she groped for the missing peg, something slithered over her wrist. She jerked her hand back. A short but terrified shriek escaped her throat.

She only screamed once, but it was enough to send Uncas sprinting into the shed. His eyes landed on her as she stood frozen against the wall, and then followed her gaze to the serpent coiled in a tense ball in the corner. "Did it bite you?" he asked.

Mutely, Alice shook her head. Uncas stepped inside and shut the door. Moving carefully, he crossed the gap to the petrified reptile. Now that the shock had worn off, she could see by its black and yellow stripes that it was a harmless garter snake. For a moment Alice almost felt sorry for it; with the door shut they had cut off its only escape route. A cold embarrassment sunk in her chest. Had she forgotten to close it the night before? The snake hissed at Uncas and Uncas's arm snapped forward, locking his fingers around the snake just below its head.

Her chest began to untighten and relax, but what Uncas did next caught her completely unprepared. He held out his hand to her, the one holding the garter snake, and with his other hand beckoned her forward. Alice folded her arms patiently across her waist.

"Uncas, please tell me you're not serious."

"Come on," he said. Alice closed her eyes. This was becoming an old routine between them. There were a few times, the truly perilous times, when Uncas would stand between her and her fears. But more often he stood on the other side, gently coaxing her out of them. It had puzzled her the first few weeks they had known each other. She wondered why he would bother. His invitation to her in mid-autumn had been simple: _Come and live with me._ Later, as autumn turned to winter and Alice grew used to walking in snowshoes and drinking water from the icicles on their door lintel, the invitation had transformed into something even simpler: _Come, and live._

Alice stared at the snake and its black eyes that unnervingly refused to blink. It was thrashing horribly in Uncas' hand. It did not comfort her to think that it was even more terrified than she was.

"Come on," Uncas repeated. He never ordered her to do anything, and he was not ordering her now. If she bolted for the door, he wouldn't bring it up again with her or anyone else. It was a very strange husband she had chosen for herself.

Alice braced her hands against the wall and pushed herself forward. This was their home; if she could not be brave here she could not be brave anywhere. As her feet closed the gap, Uncas' fingers closed around her left wrist. The steadiness in his grip gave her a sense of being pulled downward and rooted to the ground. Reaching forward, she let the back of her knuckle graze the snake's stomach. By now the animal was nearly hysterical with fear. Its tail whipped against her wrist as it tried to escape. With a sudden impetus of courage—she did not think it would last long—she seized the serpent's tail with her right hand to stop its thrashing. It immediately went rigid. Its skin felt cold and rough under her palm, and she shivered in spite of herself. A trail of goosebumps crawled up her arm. Uncas let go of her left wrist but kept his grip on the serpent.

"Never grab a snake by the tail. It won't be able to bite if you hold it underneath its head," he told her. Because it was a warning, he did not smile, but a subtle warmth betrayed itself in his eyes. It was more than pride; the expression in those eyes told her he had never doubted she would rise to the challenge. It sent an odd feeling into her stomach. No one else had looked at her with that sort of confidence before.

All the same, she was glad it was Uncas who pushed the door open and tossed the snake outside.


	5. Scent

A thick breeze broke through the tangle of branches and spider webs knotting the canopy. Alice slowed down to inhale the fragrance that had momentarily dissolved the humidity of early afternoon.

_Modest azaleas._ It was the perfume Cora had worn for her coming-out ball after her sixteenth birthday. Privately Cora had seemed rather blasé about the event. But thirteen-year-old Alice, watching from the upstairs banister, had seen how Cora greeted the guests with queenlike grace, a vision of decorum in white muslin. Their father had been proud as well. It flickered beneath his eyes despite his determined restraint. Strange that she should smell it again in the wilderness, a thousand miles from London society. Their new guides…it was unclear _who_ they were exactly. None of their tight-lipped escorts had introduced themselves. But they had led them to a peaceful spot, beside a stream lined with white-flowered rhododendrons and emerald ferns. Even Duncan looked more like his usual self, and he had been on edge since their rescue an hour ago. Alice viewed the return to normalcy with relief. The Duncan Heyward she knew had always been a cheerful, openhearted person. The irritable man he had briefly turned into was a stranger.

Her faded riding habit stuck unpleasantly to her skin. She looked enviously at the stream. It would have been wonderful to splash a handful of cool water on her face, as the young Indian scout had done a few minutes ago. She wondered what Cora would say. Cora was pragmatic; she would probably understand. But she did not want to hold the others up. After all, Alice thought, she had caused enough trouble already.

In its own way she supposed the heat was a blessing. At least she could blame that for the flush in her cheeks, and not the idiocy of her behavior. Logically she knew there was nothing she could have done during the attack. Even Cora had been helpless, though her older sister had at least maintained her composure. But afterward, when the younger Indian had turned their horses loose in the woods—she could not think of a decent excuse for the way she had acted then. How foolish she must have looked, as she rushed at him and demanded to know what he was doing. It had amounted to nothing but a pathetic attempt to assert herself. At first he had looked stunned at her outburst. But in the space of half a second, his eyes swept over her and decided she was still hysterical. He gently but dismissively passed her off to her sister.

Alice blinked and tried to clear her head. What did it matter what a half-civilized heathen thought of her? It was not as though she would ever see him again. It was her own failure that bothered her. Cora and Duncan had been as shocked as she was, but they had not lost their self-control. Next time she would do better, she promised herself.

Her heart gave an uneasy turn at the possibility of a _next time_. The larger part of her believed their ambush that morning had been a fluke. This belief was not based on a childish hope; it was rational. Their last guide had betrayed them, or so the scout with the chiseled nose and sarcastic temper had told Duncan. These strangers would not have rescued them only to betray them again. One night sleeping on the ground and then they would reach the fort, where her father and his fifteen hundred soldiers would protect them. A few months later she and Cora would return to Albany, and then to Portman Square.

Still, it was a little jarring to think of their homecoming. Alice had always been something of a wallflower in Portman Square. As a child she had believed she would shed her shyness once she became a woman and made her formal entrance into the world, but two years in society had not yet given her that grace. Visiting the Americas was supposed to change that. Leaving London, she had imagined all the stories she would tell of the wild frontier and how much more _interesting_ she would become.

Perhaps the azaleas were a good omen. To find a reminder of England on the frontier must mean that her old life had not completely abandoned her. But as she made her way along the creek, she could not shake a feeling that the breeze had been a kiss farewell, as though without meaning to she had crossed into an alien place from which there was no guarantee she would return.


End file.
